


Where the Steel Ends

by Lunardrop



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Injury, Character Death, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:08:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29685147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunardrop/pseuds/Lunardrop
Summary: In her school days, Annette’s armor looked like theory and formulas, sleeplessness from all-night study sessions, a drive to outpace her classmates. Now, it’s the lie of anI’m fine!'srefrain.Father’s, however, was forged by something stronger than hers.(OR, what if a Different Fire Emblem Dad took the fall at the Battle of Gronder Field).
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic & Gilbert Pronislav, Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 25
Kudos: 59





	Where the Steel Ends

**Author's Note:**

> All hail @tangerinabina_de_archanea, the Queen of Betaing and Patience and Encouragement!

His armor, and how battered and beaten it was, is what got him killed.

Or so what Annette thinks. It’s hard to remember, because she discovers that looping the memory enough spins the sights and sounds into a dingy, murky blur. Misery is another name for it.

Then, she will dwell there long enough, and then the dust and ash of Gronder Field will linger once more on her lip. The axe, the dagger. The textile, the metal. There it is, alive again, but little else. 

She sees it wasn’t his broken armor. It wasn’t that at all. Quite the opposite, if she’s being honest. It was entirely set in-place, taut and unbreakable.

His own pride is what killed him. The world can attest to that, because it stopped turning to watch his execution––Annette included. Everything is all the more terrible because of it.

They listened to the guttural cry of the young girl who pleaded to join their army days prior, they watched her brandish a knife that seemed too large for her palm, they saw her charge towards Dimitri with eyes more desperate than vengeful. She stabbed him once before another suit of armor charged towards them to defend his would-be king.

It’s _that_ she recognized first, before the silver-streaked hair that is colored so much like her own. His armor. The pride he takes in his position is mirrored in the carefully polished metal he wears, now dirty and grimy and caked in the blood of those he had killed. There was a large dent in it, too. The pauldrons were just clean enough for his gnashing teeth to be reflected in them. Annette saw the knight before the husband of her mother, before the ghost she had been chasing after for years and years.

_Father._

It’s Father. Father was running, he was still running. He wouldn’t stop running from her, even now.

 _"No!_ ”

No one stopped him. No one helped him. Why was she the only one who cared if he lived or died?

She tried chasing after him. It’s all she knew how to do.

There was no time to cast anything, but still a spell crackled between her fingertips. She didn't know what one. She didn't know or care what she was casting unless it hit _hard––_ Annette was going to kill her, or die trying. But the heat of her magic stopped before she can fully summon it, because someone yanked on her shoulder and dragged her back.

“You _cannot!_ ”

The words were said between someone’s gritted teeth. Only lying in bed days after, looping the scene again and again and again, did the owner of the voice register in her mind.

She tried pushing and pulling, but the other person is far stronger than her, so she was only useless.

Useless is all she was in the minute it happens. Useless is all she was as she watched.

Useless.

Father was a living, breathing, bleeding shield, and did not abandon his promise to Dimitri, even as the maiden’s dagger plunged through his throat. Blood sputtered from it, spraying him, the girl, and Dimitri. Father coughed up clods of the stuff too, and that coupled with bile, all dribbled down his chin.

It was the worst thing she had ever seen in her life.

But even worse somehow was the sound of his voice. It was weak and raspy and sounded like the air was popped from his lungs. Nothing like the solid strength it’s supposed to imbue. Father ordered the professor to land the finishing blow on his murderer, and it’s what Annette has to listen to as he dies.

Father rested a hand on Dimitri’s cheek. He told Dimitri something that she will never know about because his words were too quiet for anyone else to hear. And then he was gone, not a minute later.

Dimitri. Dimitri got to hear his final words. Not her. His daughter. His only child.

At the very end, he didn’t choose her.

At the very end, she wasn’t enough.

After the funeral, his armor was taken to a crypt dedicated to the Knights of Seiros. It seemed to rest there more peacefully than it should. 

* * *

It’s hot. The heat wave that scorched the battle at Gronder Field persists, leaving the air stale and stagnant. The way people move around the monastery is as though there’s a weight on their backs, but Annette’s unsure if it’s because of the weather or the bloodshed a week prior. Likely both.

Even at night ( _especially_ at night), Annette’s room feels like an oven. The window’s open to coax a breeze in, but none ever feel like passing by. Father never cared for the heat. On the rare warm day in Faerghus, he would dip down to the cellar with a book tucked under his arm to keep cool. Sometimes, she would follow him, plop on his knee, and listen to him try his best to weave together a story from whatever he was reading.

She hasn’t thought about that in years. Where did it come from?

She turns to her side, stretching across the side of her bed that hasn’t been warmed by her body yet. It’s not much better. She shakes her head, closing her eyes.

Easy answer: _everything_ reminds her of Father now.

She rolls onto her back and stares at the ceiling, as if it can divine some answer for her. A fact has never been so frustrating––probably because there’s no changing it.

Knocking interrupts her stewing. Annette’s learned to recognize the pattern by now: one louder _thump_ to get her attention, and two softer ones, as if to apologize for the first knock. They made this code up long ago to bypass curfew.

Strange he’s here at all.

Peeling herself off the sticky mattress, she goes to answer the door. If it were anyone else, she would probably tell them that she wanted to be left alone, but thank you for the few second distraction anyway. But it isn’t anyone else. 

It’s Felix.

A Felix who seems surprised that he even showed up on her doorstep. 

“Um, hey,” he says.

“Hi,” she says. She’s surprised he chose to visit, too. 

They haven’t spoken to each other since the funeral, and Annette knows that they both know why.

There’s more than enough foot shuffling and throat clearing for her tastes. _Way_ more than enough. She’s sick of it fast and is ready to turn right around and without saying hello. But somehow, surprisingly, _Felix_ is the one to know just what to say.

“Want to go for a walk?”

Another surprise. 

Turns out that’s exactly what she wants, more than anything else in the world. More than she guessed. Nodding, she says, “Let me change.”

Getting out is a good thing. It’ll be good.

* * *

It isn’t.

Seemingly seconds after they leave the dorm, Annette wonders if this is a mistake. 

The heat is scarcely better than her dorm. Less stuffy, that’s for sure. Less cramped and stagnant. But Garreg Mach has reminders of Father layered in-between the stonework of its walls. There’s talk of him having a proper funeral in Faerghus, but he might be happier to stay here. The monastery is where he originally escaped when he left her and Mother. More of a home to him than his actual, _real_ home. She’s scared to see the empty armor laid away in the knights’ crypt be possessed by his spirit, haunting the grounds as a way to personally spite her.

Well, maybe “scared” isn’t the right word. The thought is more irritating than frightening.

Annette kicks at a pebble in their path. She isn’t saying much, Felix isn’t saying much. They walk side-by-side: close enough to look intimate, but neither has the courage to reach a hand out. When their fingers brush together, Annette feels a jolt, and wonders if Felix feels the same as her. 

He ends up speaking first, as an offering.“It’s warm.” 

“Yes,” Annette agrees. The weather. That's all they can talk about. She wants to melt.

They wander vaguely towards the greenhouse. Tonight there’s no set roads, and Annette wonders if there will ever be one again. Probably not––the one she has walked down for years veered off. She shakes her head at herself; _that’s_ something she needs to work on accepting.

Felix catches that, eyeing her directly. When has he of all people become so astute? Or...

No. 

She just wasn’t looking hard enough, or listening closely enough. Especially right now.

Maybe now, she can finally find words, or at least try to––

Wrong again, she can’t.

So she tells him, “There’s nothing really to say.”

“No, there really isn’t.” And Annette’s imagination flashes to a young man who looks a lot like Felix, but is wearing a far cockier grin. Glenn.

Felix reaches for her arm and holds onto it. “Trying to stop you was so… stupid of me.” He pauses, licking his lips, a now long-recognized nervous habit of his. “I’m sorry. That was your fight. Not mine.”

Annette stops moving and looks away, but doesn’t pull from his grasp. “Why did you?”

“You could have been lost too, and…” Another pause, longer than the first. “I was afraid.”

 _Afraid?_ “So you didn’t trust me.”

“No!” He looks stricken, like he was the one cut down instead of Father. “That’s not it at all. It’s… hard.” She watches him formulate his words. The stress he puts upon himself to get it _right._ “When your emotions are running hot, you can’t think like you normally do. Not like I’m one to talk.”

She considers this. And she’s back at the moment when that blade plunged through Father’s neck: all the rage, the helplessness, the worry and fear and futile frustration. All of it welling up inside her, until it’s ready to boil over.

Instead, she threads her arm through Felix’s. The weight of his feels like an anchor.

“It was too late anyway,” she says. “Glyphs… they don’t work that fast. There was no time for it. And he wouldn't have let me.”

_Above all costs, protect the king._

Felix responds by rubbing her shoulder, and past the memory's sting lies the small comfort of it. 

They continue walking like this.

A breeze stirs around them by the time they make it to the greenhouse. Inside is where they shared their first kiss. First of many different things, really. At night, the interior of it looks almost opaque. She can’t see past the darkened glass, but can imagine the plants closed and ready to reopen at morning’s first light. Annette feels rather similar to it.

They move towards the nearby pond instead, sitting together at the edge of the dock. Coolness has finally settled in for the night. Annette pulls off her shoes, and dips her toes into the water. Reflecting the sky above, it’s like a clear, shiny mirror. The moon seems to sway along the surface of it, the silvery stars surrounding it. Annette has half the mind to go swimming in the starlight, and yank Felix along with her. 

That too, reminds her of Father.

“He was interested in astronomy,” Annette says suddenly. Now she’s the one who isn’t looking. Her attention is still fixed on the watery sky instead, on the memories written in the stars. “If you pointed out a constellation, Father would tell you the name of it, and tell you the story of it too.”

Felix doesn’t bother to mask the surprise in his voice. “You’re telling me he actually had _hobbies?_ ”

Annette giggles. She's unsure when the last time she heard her own laughter like that. “Amazingly, he did, at one point in time. Kinda hard to believe now.”

“Just like my old man. It’d be easier for me to believe that he never knew how to have fun at all.”

“What, like you?” she teases.

His ears turn red. “Our ideas of fun are just different. You know that.”

One of Felix’s special qualities: he’s always upfront about everything ever. It’s soothing, actually. And likely something she can learn from.

Felix might like hearing more about Father’s other hobbies. Like his love of woodcarving. Of the little dolls and trinkets he would make, but she doesn’t. Just remembering the little girl carved from pine who lays buried in her desk drawer hurts. It's too close. Far too close, for a reason she doesn’t know.

“He’s always been serious, but things changed after Duscur. It’s like the armor he wore became this… permanent shell." She hates having to carry around this… heaviness. "Nothing could crack it, not me or Mother or anyone or _anything._ And then when I finally found him again, it seemed to have taken over him completely.”

There’s a beat of silence between them before Annette adds, “Everyone in Faerghus wears armor like that to an extent. You, me, the rest of our old classmates. At least I think so.”

It just comes in different shapes and sizes and colors and kinds. In her school days, Annette’s armor looked like theory and formulas, sleeplessness from all-night study sessions, a drive to outpace her classmates. Now, it’s the lie of an _I’m fine!’s_ refrain. 

Father’s, however, was forged by something stronger than hers. Something called _regret._

His was the toughest of all. 

It resisted years of ignored letters, ignored cries from her and Mother. Years of being treated as a stranger. Of begging. Oblivious cruelty. All the times she tried in life, and all the times he said no, without actually _saying_ no. Rejections she pretended not to hear–– that’s all they ever were.

_No._

He’s the _worst._ And that’s that. Simple math for a simple equation.

But she doesn’t know what she hates more: Father’s behavior or her own foolish behavior.

“I’m an idiot,” she spits. How can a family be put back together? There are rocks littered about on the dock. She tosses one into the pond, shattering the glass-smooth surface; it does nothing to help her mood. 

Felix grabs her hand in his, and the touch takes her aback. “Annette, no. There’s nothing good going down this path.”

“But I don’t know any other. The other one I’ve been walking down only ended in grief and pain and lost time.” The words come out in a rush, and with it, another wave of anger. Not at Felix, but at her own stupidity and naivety. It burns hot inside her. 

She throws another stone, aiming further towards the moon’s reflection, temporarily pulling the light into the water’s darkness. All those years spent pining after Father sinks below with it.

“Why was _he_ the way he was? Why did he think any of this was a good idea? How… stupid can you be?” Annette is staring straight at Felix, through the red of her vision. She still hasn’t let go of his hand. “But he can’t hide anymore from this. Not from death.” 

An ugly remark coming from an ugly place. Speaking ill of the dead is a sin in Faerghus. More than anywhere else in Fódlan, where chivalry and honor isn’t placed on the same gold-laureled pedestal. Annette never has before, or if so, can’t remember when. 

But saying it still gives her an ugly bit of vindication. 

Felix has probably never cared about what is or isn’t taboo in his entire life, but she can see the surprise marring his expression. Then his gaze narrows, his mouth purses into a thin line. There’s a cold glimmer in her eye, like he’s revisiting the chill of growing up in Fraldarius lands. _Resentment,_ Annette realizes, is the name for it.

So it’s another shock when he squeezes her hand, brushing her knuckles with his thumb—for some reason, she thought he would be frosty as his face and feelings. No, she knows Felix; it feels warm in the best way.

“You’re right. He was a damned idiot. All the way to the end.” His gaze doesn’t pull away from hers. “Gustave would always talk to my old man about not being there at Duscur.” Gustave. Felix said Gustave. A total shock after years of other people saying _Gilbert._ It hits harder than it should. “Growing up, I would always hear him and my old man go on about this.” _That’s_ where Father would disappear for long periods of time before finally deserting them. “How it was their duty to defend the king and how they failed, even if they were still alive for it today. And in the end, yours got what he wanted, and I can’t be sorry enough for you.”

Annette breathes out.

Relief. Hearing Felix agree is a relief. A relief she didn’t know she was searching for. A burden falling from her back.

“It’s just weird though, feeling angry like this. It’s all I can think about right now.”

“It’d be weirder if you weren’t, Annette.”

Maybe so.

Then there it is again, the dagger through his throat.

And then the _sin_ parts come crawling back, creeping cold and crisp up her spine. This is her father they’re talking about, and he’s _dead._ His spirit she’s so scared of will haunt her for sure, even if it’s just the one in her head.

“But he wasn’t an idiot all the time.The old times with me and Mother count, don't they? And I still love him.” At least she thinks so. Odd how she has the impulse to defend him still. Seconds ago she was hating him, and felt ready to hate him for the rest of her life. Maybe what she hates is really just the Knight. But where does Father end and the Knight begin?

However, Felix remains brusque.

“No one is all the time.” The words cut through her like how the girl’s knife carved out Father’s throat. 

“It’s just… _ugh!_ ” Yanking her grasp away, she buries her face into her arms. Looking at Felix feels shameful in itself, let alone touching him. She doesn’t know why. Maybe he’s expecting her to denounce Father like the way he’s denounced Rodrigue, spitting on his grave before he’s been even buried. Isn’t that what she’s supposed to do?

Voice muffled and hidden, she says, “There’s no easy answer. But I guess there never is.” 

“And there won’t ever be. But you’re smart enough to have already figured that part out.”

“Felix, how was I supposed to _fix_ him when he never wanted that for himself?!” And he has no real answer for that, because what are you supposed to say to a question like that?

So he doesn’t. But then he does.

“Stay pissed off, then. Being pissed off is a good thing, Annette. It means you’re alive and fighting.”

Father and the Knight begin and end in the same place, looping around and around in an endless circle. Unchangeable, doomed to go on forever. 

That, Annette learns, is the finality of the death.

“But I just can’t accept it though! Any of it!” she cries out. To whom exactly, she can’t say. Her throat is closing up. That always happens first when she is about to cry, and that’s happening right now. Annette sniffles, and tries to push the press of tears back. They spill out anyway. A choked sob croaks out. 

“I hate wasting anything,” she rasps. “But now I know that wasted time is the worst of all. You can’t get it back. Never, ever.”

Crying is a waste of time too, but here she is, eyes burning and jaw quaking. Stopping herself now would be useless. It’s useless. All of it is useless. 

_Useless._

She keeps crying. Harder.

Maybe Felix says something. She doesn’t know, it doesn’t matter. She can’t hear past the sound of her own sobbing. Or see anything past her blurred vision. Or taste past the salt on her lip. 

Or feel anything other than Felix taking a part of _her_ suit of armor piece by battered piece.

Everything melts away except for the embrace Felix wraps her in. For the tight crush against his chest. The other hand raking through her tangled hair, his trembling arms. Is he scared too? He smells like evergreen, and for some reason, that _(like everything else)_ makes her cry even more. Annette squeezes him, like she never has before. Maybe a quiet part of her is afraid that he’ll be taken away from her too.

At Father’s funeral, she mourned for the loss of his life. Now she’s mourning for the loss of time and loss of a dream and the loss of what could have been and what should have happened but didn’t happen and now never will.

“Felix, I’m sorry.” Her tears are also for him, Rodrigue, and Glenn. “I’m just so sorry! It’s all terrible!’

Somehow, Felix seems to know this too. All of it. He cradles her for as long as she wants. They can stay there until the stars fall from the sky for all she cares.

In her ear he mutters, “It is. I’m sorry too, Annette.”

She hiccups. There’s not enough air in the world at that second. “I–It’s okay.” It’s not okay in the slightest. “I–I have to be stronger than this. Better.” Even though now’s not the time to be stronger or better or anything but who she is now.

Felix knows it as well:

“No, nothing about this is okay. It won’t ever be. Pretending otherwise doesn’t help.”

He’s right. How can it be when it won’t ever be.

Just for the night then, it’s enough for him to hold her like this, immersed in the softness of his shirt and his scent. And he cradles her until her tears slowly stop and she is the one ready to pull away first. Until she’s done. And she is.

In a sense. She’ll never be finished about this, probably ever. But she’s ready to be “done” for at least the night.

She tries a smile too, but it feels weak and strained and unnecessary. Instead, she mutters, “I’m sorry about this.”

“Don’t apologize.”

Felix is looking anywhere but Annette. The clueless student at the Officers’ Academy still resides inside him: shy, self-conscious, embarrassed. Though, not with _her,_ she knows; it’s all on him. One hand is still squeezing hers. “There’s no point in you apologizing when that should be me... I made things harder for you.” Immediately after saying so he looks as though he swallowed something bitter. “What I mean to say is that I’m not good at this––comforting people.” 

None of what he said is true in the slightest. She cocks a brow at him. "You’re trying though, and that’s what matters.”

“Because you of all people deserve that at the very least. And more than that, way more than only that.”

What he means to say is, _because it’s you._

“Thank you,” she says, because it’s him. She smiles again, and this time, it feels easier and genuine and true.

Felix looks straight at her and smiles. Returning it helps her feel lighter. Just a little.

Looking out at the pond again, she sees the moon has continued on its nightly course and no longer floats before them. There are more stars than ever in the water, more numerous than can be counted. In a few hours, the sun would rise again. 

Felix stands first, holding his hand out for her. She takes it, lingering on the way their little fingers touch.

For the night, they are happy to leave their armor behind on the dock. And they continue their walk, taking the long way home.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, a fic for Fire Emblem: Three Houses has been a long time coming! I've been trying to finish something since the game was originally released, and way after the fact I finally have lol. Better late than never, right? Expect more Netteflix in the future because I love them so much!! ♡
> 
> A Twitter account will be linked here when I stop being lazy!


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